Romance Novelist
by beruthiel24
Summary: Harry rescues a romance novelist from the servitude of the White Court but encounters more than he'd bargained for.


It was just past 1 a.m. when a loud banging on the door jolted me from a fitful rest. I gathered my shield bracelet and shuffled to the door, blasting rod at the ready.

"Who is it?"

"It's Thomas, jackass," my half-brother drawled lazily. "Let me in."

I muttered down the wards to my - no, Molly's apartment, and Thomas shuffled in, dragging a small, dark-haired woman reluctantly behind him.

"Thanks," he said, shoving the little lady aside. "Can I borrow a shirt?"

"Sure," I said, realizing with no small amount of trepidation he'd bled through the red silk blouse he was currently wearing. "Um," I said. "Are you OK?"

"Naught but a flesh wound," he jibed. I kept my rod focused on the young woman now cowering next to the foyer. I try not to behave aggressively toward women in general, as it's impolite, but I had a lingering notion the .32 revolver clenched firmly in her right hand still held a few more rounds. Nothing I couldn't handle, but anyone who shot my brother wasn't making my list of Christmas cards, either.

"I'm Harry," I offered. "And you are?"

"Getting out of here," she said coolly. The revolver's barrel weaved toward my chest. Oh, Hell's bells.

"Forzare," I muttered, and the weapon careened off of the kitchen cabinet and harmlessly to the tile floor. "You know you shouldn't aim that unless you intend to use it, right?" I asked her.

I was trying to be nice, dammit, but her brown eyes widened and she collapsed into a little puddle of tears. Great. Harry Dresden, bully of small, doe-eyed women. "Hey, I'm sorry," I started, reaching to pull her up –

"Don't-"

Thomas' warning was a second too late.

In an instant, kinetic energy aimed at my Adam's apple hit me like a Mack truck, and I collapsed, gasping, on the kitchen floor. The tiny perpetrator made a run for the door, but Thomas, sloppily dressed in one of my old t-shirts, yanked her back firmly by the wrist.

"What did I say?" he hissed. "Play nice, and this goes away."

"Bite me," she snarled. "You and the rest of that White trash."

"I'm helping," he growled, seizing her by the hair in a manner that was probably necessary but altogether uncomfortable, at least for me. "Emily," he hissed in her ear, "this is my friend Harry. Harry's going to help you, if you're polite. Can you be polite?"

She narrowed her eyes. "I'm always polite. Just ask Lara."

I rose with some difficulty. "Thomas, what the hell?"

"I need you to get her out of Chicago. I was about to deliver her to Marcone," he added, "but I had car trouble. Someone," he hissed in her ear," emptied three rounds into the dash. "

"Who is she?"

Thomas growled, releasing his captive and pushing back a lock of his blue-black hair. Emily, I guess her name was, gave a little involuntary sigh and slumped against the wall. I had to give the little weirdo credit; managing to resist Thomas' advances long enough to put a round through his ribs showed a lot of hormonal fortitude.

"This is Emily Smith, aka Ella Everglade," Thomas said.

"Huh?"

"The romance novelist," Thomas continued irritably. "Laura has a half-dozen in the stable, all churning out stories for Harlequin." He narrowed his eyes. "This one went off the reservation." He leaned closer to her ear. "Lara sent me to dispose of her."

I swallowed. Thomas was a vampire, an incubus of the White Court. Had he wanted to dispose of Ms. Everglade, or Smith, or whoever, all he had to do was utter a word. Thomas spent most of his waking moments fighting his baser instincts. And so he'd come to me.

"Um, are all of Lara's writers packing heat?" I stammered, massaging my bruised throat. Thomas choked back a chuckle.

"She's telekinetic, but lousy. Emily," he jibed, "what was that?"

"Nothing," she hissed, while at the same time crooking her fingers in an angular motion my brother's direction. "Lemme show you."

"No thank you," Thomas grinned, yanking her hand firmly and pulling her arm behind her back. "She's been writing for a couple of years now," Thomas told me, half-dragging the struggling writer toward the kitchen. "Last week Lara found an alternate author site. It turns out Emily's working on Stokering the White Court; all of her romances have alternate endings."

"Fuck off," Emily groused.

"Alternate endings," I mused. "Not bad."

"Not bad at all," Thomas agreed. "Except for that bit about VD," he chided. "Say what you will, but we don't have VD," he added to her in a miffed tone.

"Give the girl a break, Thomas," I said. "I mean, you're sucking the life out of unsuspecting housewives; at least give them a chance to pause and worry about cooties before they give up the ghost."

My brother rolled his eyes. "Fine, side with her; I knew you would."

"So you're getting her out of Chicago before Lara manages to catch her?"

"No," Thomas grinned. "For the record, I ate her two hours ago and dumped her in the lake. You're the one getting her out of Chicago."

"Great," I muttered. "Can you at least convince her not to batter me in the process?"

"Emily," Thomas said sternly. "If I don't eat you, will you behave politely?"

The young woman flushed, shuddering under the influence of my brother's power. "Fine. Get lost," she muttered.

"See ya, Harry," Thomas called lightly as he opened the door. "I've a hair appointment. I'll check in for lunch Tuesday?"

"Whatever," I agreed. I turned to Emily, who remained crouched defensively on the kitchen floor. "Ok, let's get you to safer digs. Do you have family outside of Chicago?"

"As if I'd tell you," she muttered.

"Ok, then this is going to be hard."

"I'll call them, and they'll pick me up."

"Fine."

She withdrew a cellphone from the pocket of her jacket, and walked purposefully to the kitchen sink. She turned on the tap, stuck an elbow beneath the running water, and powered up the cellphone.

Her fingers flitted over the interface. "Mama? It's Emily. Yes I'm coming to Austin. Can you send-"

Her voice trailed off as she stood in the kitchen, glowering over the phone.

"Trouble dialing out?" I asked innocently.

She glowered at me and resumed dialing. "Hey kiddo, I need-"

She paused, staring incredulously at the dead phone.

"Maybe if you hadn't ramped up the juice whacking me, you might have been able to tone it down for the call," I offered.

Her eyes narrowed. "Sunspots. Damned sunspots."

"Huh?"

"I was a reporter, you know," she muttered, packing the cell away in her purse, along with the .32. "Covered crude oil futures, natural gas, that sort of thing. But the Raiths found me."

"Ok," I said in my most reasonable tone.

"I covered energy for the wires, until the damned sun spots made the static," she muttered. "Broke my cell. Broke the office computers. Downed the entire network, and IT blamed me." She glanced up, her eyes brimming with tears, and it was all I could do to keep Winter in check. "I couldn't work anymore. So I got drunk and wrote some _Fifty Shades_ fanfic, and faxed it to a publisher. And the vampires found me," she finished, sobbing. She crumpled onto a barstool. "And now they're going to kill me, because I exposed them for a bunch of creepy perverts."

I tried to think of something supportive to say, but it was late, and I was tired. "Well I'm here to drive you away from the perverts," I offered helpfully. "Let's just get a better idea of where you need to be."

"Austin," she sniffled. "It's weird, but it's home."

"Weird, huh?"

I drove us to an all-night coffee shop downtown.

"How is this getting me to Austin?" she groused.

"Wait for it," I said. I held the door open for her as we went inside. The coffee bar was illuminated in warm tones, with mismatched sofas and other second-hand furniture scattered throughout. The barista, a twenty-something a little too old to be making cappuccino, or sporting eyebrow rings, looked up nonchalantly from a copy of _Catch 22_.

"Can I help you?" he asked, as if it were an imposition. I glanced at Emily. A small grin played at the corner of her lips.

"Well?" I asked her.

She surveyed the scene. "Hip. Pretentious. Grossly overpriced and pseudo-intellectual. Yes, it reminds me of home."

"We just needed to use your washroom," I told the young man, and we shuffled past the counter before he could protest. The café was so hip it had a unisex bathroom. Still, I caught a couple of funny looks as we both went inside.

"Now what?" she asked.

"I'm opening a Way," I told her. "Pipe down." I focused my will and tried to concentrate on a door in the Nevernever that led in the direction of Texas.

After a few moments I had a location in mind. "Follow me," I said.

"Where?" Emily asked, gathering the empty revolver.

"Just come along," I told her. "Aparturum," I muttered, feeling the heat of an autumn night well to the south swelling around the hem of my coat.

We stepped out into a shabby bathroom. When I opened the door, we emerged in a Starbucks.

Emily cussed. "This is south Austin," she griped.

"Well, it's closer than Chicago," I said.

"Jackass," she muttered, shouldering her bags. "How do I know you won't tell Lara where I went?"

"Because I don't care for them either," I said.

"You work with that bastard, Thomas," she countered.

"He owed me one," I said. "I'm paying him back. Are we clear?"

She hoisted her bag higher on her hip and nodded. "Fine," she said. "All clear." She went to a pay phone. They kept one, fortunately for her, to be ironic. She dialed, and I ambled to the counter and ordered a coffee. Or at least what I hoped was coffee. A "grande" something.

The blue-haired young woman at the counter delivered it in a few moments, and I missed Molls something terribly. I glanced at Emily, talking urgently in low tones at the payphone. She packed enough of a wallop to kill her cell with any effort. Heck, I thought she might have been a problem for me, back at the apartment. Molly had a hell of a lot of sensitive ability. I closed my eyes and willed my senses toward Emily; my empathic sensibilities hit the equivalent of a brick wall. I opened my eyes. Emily glowered at me, and hung up the phone.

"My sister's coming to pick me up," she said. "She's pissed."

"Because it's late?"

"It's late, and she knows I shouldn't be here this fast," she muttered. She ordered an espresso.

"It's after midnight," I said.

"Who sleeps?"

"I do, when I'm not called out to chauffer you around." I sipped my coffee.

"Oh," she said quietly. "I appreciate it, Mr. Dresden."

"Anything to keep someone off of the menu," I said. She shuddered. "So you ended up working for Lara because you can't work a computer? Or are you a fan of Danielle Steele?"

She glared at me, stirring a swizzle stick of conglomerated sugar into a ridiculously tiny cup. She tossed the lemon spring into the mess before answering.

"The computers went out at work, like I said," she muttered, sipping it and blanching a little. Her shoulders slumped. "You know, I'd rather have McDonald's."

"And yet here we are," I grinned.

"And here we are. Everything went haywire. And Lara found me. Told me what to write, how to write. Even moved me into the mansion." She shuddered. "That was a mistake."

"Because you saw what they are," I finished.

"Because until then I knew sex was a commodity, at least for a lot of people." She winced. "I'd just never seen them inventoried like Tyson's chicken."

"Disturbing," I said.

"Yeah," she agreed.

"How long have you been, you know, hitting people?"

She blinked.

"Telekinesis," I said in a low tone. "You know, what you hit me with back at the apartment."

Her brow furrowed. "That's been around for a while." She paused. "Wait, is that why my phone died?"

I sighed. "Probably," I said.

She practically bounced out of her seat. "So if I stop, I can get the phones to work?" She eyed me, her eyes eager and bright.

"It doesn't really work that way," I began, but a minivan pulled outside of the shop. Emily hopped out of her seat.

"Thanks for the lift," she bubbled, offering me a quick hug. "Mum's the word on the weird crap, right?"

"Right," I sighed. I finished my grande whatever and went to the restroom to go home.

Back at Molly's apartment, I filled Bob in on the particulars.

"Whoa, wait. You met Ella Everglade?"

"Yeah. So?"

"She's the queen of kink, Harry," he stammered, his eye sockets burning brightly. "She's brilliant. Took soft porn to new levels of detail."

"Well, she's officially dead," I told him.

"Find her," Bob moaned. "I'll help."

"Enough, you cretin. Besides, I'm working on a new-"

I wasn't able to finish the thought. A small crystal at the edge of the desk gleamed brightly. Ebenezer.

"Hoss, are you up?"

"Yessir," I said.

"Alright, wanted to give you a heads up. They're taking in a warlock, pretty rough, down in Texas. They think she'll bounce to Chicago, once she's cornered."

"Telekinetic? Small?"

"Yeah, packing fire to boot," he said. I closed my eyes, cursing silently. "Hoss?"

"I'm on it," I said. 


End file.
